Tenure Track Assistant Professor Positions : São Paulo, Brazil

BSSB - Biomass Systems and Synthetic Biology
The Institute of Chemistry will be expanding its bioenergy faculty in the next year.
The Institute of Chemistry is one of the top life sciences research centers in Latin America, with state-of-the-art facilities for genomic, cell, structural biology and analytical chemistry, among others. It has an internationally recognized faculty and a talented pool of graduate students and postdoctoral fellows.
Apart from teaching graduate and undergraduate courses we seek individuals who are highly qualified and capable to develop competitive, independent research at the cutting edge of Chemistry, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology to join the Biomass Systems and Synthetic Biology Center (http://bioenfapesp.org/bssb).
The Biomass Systems and Synthetic Biology Center (BSSB) brings together researchers from diverse backgrounds to conduct multidisciplinary activities under the FAPESP Bioenergy Research Program, BIOEN.
Activities in Synthetic and Systems Biology are trans-disciplinary and the new professors may work within the Divisions of Biomass, Biofuels Technologies or Biorefineries.
Potential candidates for positions should hold a PhD degree and demonstrate capacity to obtain funding and conduct independent leading-edge research and to supervise graduate and undergraduate students.
The selection process for tenure-track positions may be held in either Portuguese or English. Manifestations of interest or requests for further information should be sent to bioen@iq.usp.br .
Positions currently available
Tenure-track Assistant Professor position in Bioenergy & Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Teaching activities
1) Undergraduate Courses: the successful candidate will be expected to administer classes in the areas of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology to students from a variety of undergraduate programs including Chemistry, Biology, Biomedicine, Pharmacy and health professionals (Medicine, Dentistry, Veterinary Medicine).
2) Graduate Courses: the successful candidate will be expected to offer courses of his/her design at the graduate level in the areas of Bioenergy, Biofuels and Renewable Chemicals, Molecular Biology, Advanced Biochemistry or other related fields.
Research Activities
Successful candidates will be expected to lead research projects in Systems and Synthetic Biology applied to plants or microorganisms. The long term goal is the definition of metabolic and regulatory networks that will lead to increased productivity, the efficient use of biomass for energy production and the production of bio-based chemicals.
Areas of interest for the candidate’s activities are, but not limited to:
Genome sequencing of plants and microorganisms of interest for bioenergy production, comparative genomics, functional genomics;
Identification of targets and routes for the genetic breeding of plants and microorganisms, integrated analysis of transcriptome, proteome, metabolome, lipidome;
Large scale analysis of agronomic traits of interest, characterization of genotypes and mutants, robotics and automation of phenotyping, phenotype analysis on a large scale, microfluidics, development of sensors and biochemical assays for analyzing the genome;
Bioinformatics, statistics, data integration, high performance data analysis;
Development of methodologies for the production of transgenics and studies in ‘model plants’ of gene function with the aim of changing metabolic pathways of interest for biomass or bio-based chemicals production, biofactory;
Metabolic networks, metabolic engineering in plants and microorganisms, microorganism evolution for obtaining more productive strains;
Definition of regulatory networks and gene networks associated with agronomic traits of interest, photosynthesis, control of carbon partition, adaptation to the environment, stress responses or creation of new features in plants and organisms;
Expression systems that lead to the controlled expression of gene groups in plants and microorganisms, synthesis of genomes, biobricks, cell-free expression;
Studies of interactions between biomolecules (protein-ligand, protein-protein, protein-nucleic acid) and between cells and tissues to define the architecture of cellular networks, biochemical and biophysical aspects of interaction networks, modeling of growth and development of plants and microorganisms.
Tenure-track Assistant Professor position in Bioenergy & Chemistry
Teaching Activities
1) Undergraduate Courses: the successful candidate will be expected to administer classes in the areas of General Chemistry to students from a variety of undergraduate programs.
2) Graduate Courses: the successful candidate will be expected to offer courses of his/her design at the graduate level in modern and advanced areas of Chemistry, and related fields.
Research Activities
Areas of interest for the candidate’s activities are, but not limited to:
Application of modern spectroscopic methods including MALDI-Imaging and high field NMR to determine structures of compounds produced by plants (genotypes and transcripts) and microorganisms;
Application of metabolomics to unravel metabolic networks in plants and microorganisms integrated to all omics data types;
Development of sensitive labeling methods to monitor secondary metabolism and enzymes in situ in plants growing under the effects of stress;
Development of high-throughput methodology to determine bioactive compounds from plants or microorganisms;
Degradation of biomacromolecules;
Development of technologies to produce high-value chemicals from biomass, including catalytic (homogeneous, heterogeneous, enzymatic, etc.) and fermentative routes.
Development of novel biopolymers from agricultural wastes and biofuels.
Studies of innovative process for the conversion of lignin in useful chemicals and materials
New approaches for the production of biogas from agricultural waste.